Fluid filters, including oil filters, play a central role in protecting the engine within all automotive vehicles. An oil filter ensures optimum oil supply, especially during cold starts when oil viscosity is at its greatest. Over time the engine oil circuit becomes contaminated by combustion residue, metal shavings and other particles. To remove these pollutants engine oil is pumped into the oil filter where it is then passed through a pleated filtering medium designed to remove impurities down to the micron level. Once the engine oil is filtered through the pleated filtering medium, it then flows back into the oil pump where it is then sent to the engine. Oil filters are intended to be changed periodically, as the pleated filtering medium accumulates particulate debris suspended in the engine oil over time due to normal usage. While tightening an oil filter on a mounting base, one may be uncertain about how far to advance the filter toward the oil filter to the mounting base of an engine block to securely tighten the oil filter. Tightening it too much may cause damage to the oil filter, specifically the sealing ring, which may deform as the result of over-compression caused by advancing the filter too far and allow pressurized oil to leak out. Not tightening it enough—under-compression as the result of insufficient advancement of the filter—may also result in leaks, which may cause extensive damage to the engine due to oil starvation and subsequent overheating. Ordinarily for filters, this is done by hand, or by measuring the exact amount of torque applied to the filter. These methods are intended to correspond to a particular amount of advancement of the filter. But this can be inexact or require special tools. Similar considerations may apply to other kinds of fluid filters relying on compression of a seal and that are advanced axially to the desired position, such as by a threaded fitting. Accordingly, it would be beneficial in the art if there were a tangible (e.g., tactile or audible) indication to the person installing the filter that the filter has been sufficiently advanced and that the filter is properly secured and neither too tightly nor too loosely attached. Furthermore, visual, tactile, and/or audible indicators of sufficient levels of compression between two parts could be useful outside the context of an oil filter, such as in tire lug nuts or other nonautomotive applications such as bottle caps which change shape when the contents become spoiled.